


Loss of Myself

by TheHeightsThatWuthered (JosieRuby1)



Category: Wuthering Heights - Emily Brontë
Genre: Death, Drama, F/M, Grief, Moorlands, Pain, Suicide, dramatic people being dramatic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-19
Updated: 2018-05-22
Packaged: 2018-12-17 11:57:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11851089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JosieRuby1/pseuds/TheHeightsThatWuthered
Summary: Cathy Earnshaw doesn't die from her fever and childbirth however that doesn't mean things calm down on the moors. Within Wuthering Heights things fall apart in a way undescribable which may leave the new mother in a state worse than death.





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

  * For [KiraKiralina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KiraKiralina/gifts).



> Thank you to Kira for the innocent question that sparked this fanfic idea.

There were many words to describe Catherine Earnshaw. She was wayward, she was wild, she was egotistical, she was intense, she was dramatic. A word that was generally not associated with Catherine Earnshaw was calm. Cathy lay in bed with the tiny form of her daughter in her arms and serenity was over both faces. The younger Catherine slept without a care in the world and the knowledge that her Mother was there for love and protection. The elder Catherine watched the sleeping form with incomprehension. There were many words to describe the tiny sleeping form and they were all the opposite of Cathy herself. The baby was soft, gentle, delicate. Cathy couldn’t understand how such a perfect child could have been formed out of her.

Neither were well but both were improving.

The mother had been in a fever when the baby has arrived, seeing visions both terrible and great and working herself into such a state that even Dr Kenneth did not see recovery as possible. Cathy had fallen into a deep unconsciousness after hearing Catherines first cry of life and Edgar had attended her every need. He held continuous cold cloths to her head and in time her fever had broken and she woke again, quietly asking for her daughter.

The daughter had been premature. Only seven months in the security of her mother’s womb, Catherine had not truly been ready to enter the world. She cried but it was not the piercing scream that Cathy had produced as an infant, instead it was a sound befitting her small size. Dr Kenneth had warned that the survival rate of early infants was low but Catherine had proven to be a fighter as was her mother.

Catherine was four days old when she was placed into Cathy’s arms for the first time, wrapped in a soft lime green blanket that Nelly had knitted, tuffs of blond hair was beginning to curl out of her head and small fingers curled onto the edge of the blanket. Her eyes were closed with the peace of sleep but Edgar had informed Cathy of the piercing blue eyes their daughter had. Cathys smile was gentle, one that promised she would be a kindly mother, one that promised this tiny being would be the soul focus of her attention from now on.

Cathy nursed her child herself despite being told she was not strong enough. Cathy felt it important to have this connection with her child and did not wish to become a mother who palmed the child onto a wet nurse the moment it was born. Catherine was hers and Cathy was going to treat her as such. The actions took all of the energy out of Cathy, leaving her with a fatigue that bound her unable to hold conversation or even a trail of thought. Still sat up on the bed Cathy slipped in and out of sleep, Catherine in her arms and one or both of Nelly and Edgar at the bedside each time she came to open her eyes.

Days passed and Cathy did not leave the bed. She consented to Catherine being taken from her arms under the promise that either Nelly or Edgar be with her at all times. There was an unexplainable fear in her if Catherine was not watched constantly. The fear was secondary though, second to the exhaustion that took over her and forced sleep upon her often. Nelly provided soups and broths and other easily consumed meals and stroked Cathy’s hair while she eats. Cathy even smiled when Nelly commented on how much nicer things were now Cathy was being more amiable.

When she was able to hold conversation, Cathy requested information on her daughter and when she had any strength, she requested to hold her. Catherine’s progress was easy to see every time Cathy saw her. She got bigger with every passing day, the fine blond hair covered her head and she was never without a smile. Cathy too was never without a smile when she was in the presence of the tiny beauty.

A fortnight passed in this way, Cathy doing nothing but sleeping and holding her daughter. The progress was harder to see on the mother than the daughter but it was there. Day by day Cathy was able to sit up for longer periods of time and was able to hold conversation longer. Talk eventually came of her leaving the bed and perhaps dressing. Cathy showed some excitement at the idea wanting nothing more than to take Catherine to town and show her off. Catherine’s existence was proof that Cathy was capable of being a proper wife and mother despite what everyone had thought.

Cathy stood and was surprised her legs were able to bear her weight without complaint. She applied perfume and a touch of make up before pulling on a simple but cute pale gown, one she wouldn’t mind becoming covered in sick. Leaving the bedroom was akin to taking the first step up a mountain trail, it was the start of a great achievement that simply would not have been possible even days before. In that moment Cathy felt invincible. She could conquer anything. She was all powerful.

She descended the stairs and entered into the living room. The living room was a somber place, Edgar sat on an armchair with a grave look on his face and Nelly was stood rocking Catherine in her arms as though to distract herself. Cathy’s smile was sunlight through the black clouds of the room and she took Catherine from Nelly. Cathy kissed her daughters forehead and made a collection of silly faces at her. All was right with the world.

Her peaceful reverie was broken by Edgars voice. His was a voice that was always soft and gentle, a voice that was calming but also a voice you could not take seriously when it scolded. Now, however, his voice was gruff with concern.

“Catherine, my darling, take a seat, I need to tell you something. It’s about Heathcliff.”


	2. Chapter 2

Heathcliff.

The word came as a flinch from Edgar’s voice. It came with the knowledge that it was the one word that could break the calm air that had come over his wife since giving birth. It came with bitter tasting memories of threats and shouting and tears. It came with the fear of losing Cathy when he had only recently truly gotten her back.

Heathcliff.

The word came with a start from Nelly. She seemed only with the word to notice that she no longer had Catherine in her arms and that her arms were still rocking the empty air. The word came with the knowledge that it had become an unspoken law not to mention his name in this household. It came with the weight of what this all meant

Heathcliff.

The word came like a knife to Cathy. Not through the heart but rather through her mind. It took the shelter that her illness had created and cut it, sliced it, torn it again. It came as a whirlwind of emotions that almost caused the newly well mother to fall. Cathy dropped herself carefully into the couch, Catherine close in her arms. The word came with the purple of the heather on the moors and the sting of tears from loss time and time again.

Cathy stared at Catherine for a long moment. Blue eyes and a toothless grin were the only signs of happiness or serenity in the household now and Cathy hoped if she could only keep looking at her daughter then she could regain her own shelter and once again forget that name. Nothing could have been more futile. Cathy’s eyes burned with the salt of forming tears that she would not cry. Tears she barely understood the meaning of.

“My love, why would you mention him now? Are we not happy now, with our perfect little girl.” The smile on Cathy’s face would not have fooled even a stranger. Her eyes wrinkled with the effort of keeping it there and keeping that burning wetness at bay. “Surely you don’t wish to bring up such bad memories. Do you want to punish me for the time before? Edgar, darling, I picked you, I am here, I am holding our daughter is that not enough.”

As she spoke Cathy considered the weight of her words, how much they meant. She considered the way Heathcliff was not so much in her heart but rather in her soul. She felt complete around him, she felt whole in a way she did not around anyone else. Hers and Heathcliff’s very being was the same. Edgar was safety and security and this beautiful little girl but if Heathcliff were in front of her right now, could she really choose security? The conflict that she had fought within herself since Heathcliff’s return came back to her again now. Fire and ice burned inside of her, Heathcliff and Edgar and a desperate unyielding need for them both in entirely different ways.

Cathy was surprised when she blinked to find that Edgar was at her side. There were tears in his own eyes for some grieve that Cathy could not understand. They were healthy and Catherine was with them this was supposed to be a time of happiness. Edgars arm around her was comforting, it was the arm that came bearing bad news. She stilled and simply loomed at him.

“I am not trying to punish you, my darling, I hold no grudge against you for any past events,” Edgars hand moved to brush Cathy’s hair back from her eyes then to cup her face. “I love you, Catherine, and believe me if I could shield you for life from the news I hold I would but it is better you find it out from me than otherwise.”

Cathy shifted uncomfortably away from Edgars touch. This entire scene was reminiscent of her father telling her that her Mother’s sickness had claimed her. Bile rose in Cathy’s throat and she returned her gaze once again to Catherine. Her eyes were closed now, so peaceful, so unawares of anything. Lucky.

“Please just say it,” Cathy requested, her voice heavy with anticipated grief.

Edgar was silent for a long moment and when Cathy risked a glance at him she saw him opening and closing his mouth as though no words resided there. He ran a hand over his face, gave a certain nod and let his hand drop awkwardly back to his side. “Heathcliff has been killed.”

Cathy begun to shake. The motion was instantaneous and took her while body in its attack. Somewhere in the distance she heard Edgar beg Nelly to take Catherine and a weight no longer being in her arms. In front of her there was no sight, there was no living room, no people. She closed her eyes and shades of black and white swirled behind her eyelids. Her mind was nothing but this swirl, she could not think, she would not feel, nor hear, nor see, nor smell. There was only black and white and a burning burning cold into her very core.

“Catherine?”

It was hard to tell how any times Edgar had spoken her name before the swirl had cleared even enough for her to comprehend it and its connection to her. She stared at him with empty eyes, unaware of his hands gripping her eyes and the desperate worry in the blue eyes staring at her.

“Are you all right?”

A redundant question but one Edgar required an answer to in order to judge the state of his wife. Cathy only stared for a long moment. Out of nowhere she snapped into attention and spoke quickly.

“Who killed him?” She asked. Her voice was as level as though she were asking if he wanted sugar in his tea.

Edgar let go of her arms and reached for a few sheets of paper that were on the ground, disregarded in his attempt to awaken Cathy. He sat back up and unfolded and refolded the papers several times. “This is a letter that explains everything but it is a lot, Catherine, you don’t have to read it.”

Cathy was slowly in reaching out to take the sheets and opening them. The writing was one she recognised without thought.


	3. Chapter 3

_Dearest Cathy,_

_I fear by the time you read this in its entirety or perhaps even already, you will not wish for me to refer to you as such but you are dear to me. I have failed as a brother, as a father, and I would even go as far as to say I have failed as a person. As you know I have lead an unchristian life, one full of vices and anguish. I hold no one but myself responsible for the way my life has turned out. I used to blame, I used to hate, I used to be full of an anger I could not control nor truly understand but now I am just sorry. Sorry as in an apology and sorry as in sorrow._

_I’m not looking for pity, Cathy, and I am not looking for forgiveness, I am beyond either. I believe I am even beyond God. I have sent someone to hell and in the process I have thrown myself there. I can only hope that I wake in that fiery torment and receive the just punishment for the many many wrongs I have done._

_Allow me to start from the beginning, please make sure you are seated, this is a long tale and there is not a moment of it that is pleasant. It begun the other night, you were dying they said. They said you held a fever that was unlikely to break and they weren’t sure you would survive long enough even to give birth. You are strong, sister, stronger and better than I could ever be. But you were dying and that did something to Heathcliff’s mind and state of being._

_We all have our vices, Cathy, I’m sure you understand that. We all have our things that we think we can find the answer to all of lives questions within. Mine has been the drink and the games. I never found the answers at the bottom of a bottle or in a pack of cards but I never stopped looking. For Heathcliff, the vice was you. You were his lifeline, Cathy, you were his reason for living , you were his everything. I do not know that I can call what the pair of you experienced love but it was something akin to it at least._

_With the knowledge that you were dying, Heathcliff seemed to break. The fire that raged inside him and continually kept him alive and seeking his revenge had died and there was nothing left to him bit a cold emptiness. And I was drunk. I do not tell you this as a justification because there is not one. I tell you because it us a flat. I was drunk, Isabella I believed to be out and Hareton. Well I’ll be honest, I tended to make a conscious effort to avoid Hareton._

_For weeks and months I have threatened Heathcliff. He was to lock his door at night so I did not enter with a pistol or a knife. He had the sense to do so but I never truly believe myself capable. For the most part I was simply enjoying that little bit of fear I was able to cause him._

_Cathy, my dear sister, I am sorry._

_This night was different. I was drunk. He was there. A look of great despair in his eyes that I enjoyed. I longed for him to suffer like I always was. I longed for him to be in pain as I was. He looked at me, his eyes as clouded with grief as mine were with alcohol._

_“Why don’t you do it?” He spat at me and walked close to the armchair I was slumped in. “I know you are hiding it there, behind your back or under the cushion so why don’t you just do it?”_

_I stared blankly at him and did not reply for a moment “Leave my presence if you wish to remain breathing,” I told him eventually._

_“And if I don’t?” He asked. “Or are you too craven to actually do anything. Coward.”_

_He was riling me up and I was determined to ignore him._

_“You always were a coward, picking in those bigger than you and throwing around empty threats but unable to do anything. You’re a pathetic coward.”_

_He couldn’t understand that they words did not touch me because I was already aware of them. However the physical action that followed was the one to get my attention. He grabbed me by the lapels of my shirt and forced e to my feet, shaking me like a naughty child. I swung out then, my fist colliding with his face, his nose knocked out of shape and bleeding but only a grin on the devilish beings face._

_His movements were quick, easy too quick for my drunk addled brain to comprehend. He was behind me and had grabbed the pistol I always kept close before I knew what was happening. I swung around to watch him, fear for my own life hitting me as I found him staring almost lovingly at the pistol. I did not wish to die then, Cathy, it did not seem I necessity._

_He looked back at me and offered the pistol. I simply stared at him. There were tears in his eyes now. God almighty, I did not know the villain was capable of such human emotion._

_“Take it!” He screamed, trying to thrust it into my chest._

_I did so. Simply holding it and watching him._

_“Use it.” He continued. “I am nothing without her! She is my life, how can I live without my live. How can I continue without my soul. I cannot be on this world when she is not. I cannot exist when she does not. USE IT!” The final two words were barely understandable in a avalanche of emotion. He sobbed and looked so wretched that I almost pitied him._

_Almost. Instead anger rose as it always did . Anger was always an easier emotion to express and use than pity or love or kindness. I saw red; how dare he be so distraught when he had caused this sickness of yours. How dare he grieve when he had shattered your peaceful marriage. How dare he breathe when you lay dying?_

_I raised the gun, hovering it around his chest, and saw hope flicker in those dark wretched eyes. “I could kill you in a second. Get rid of everyone’s problems, fix everything.”_

_In that moment I realised, the answer to life was not in the packet of card or the bottom of a bottle, it was in ridding the world of this gipsy bastard. And I did._

_God forgive me. Cathy, I did it. Before he even had time to answer my comment, my finger tightened on the trigger and the bullet hit him. He fall back and the backlash of the shot knock me back too. When I had steadied myself, he was bleeding out in the floor and he looked serene. He was talking but not to me, instead to you._

_“I will join you, my Cathy, my darling, my soul. We shall always be together now.”_

_The words came weak and I could not tell you if he said anything else because I was distracted by a panicked Isabella running into the room. She came in with a jumbled question about a gunshot but it was cut off with a pained gasped when she saw. Wordlessly she looked between me and the gun and Heathcliff and just left the room again._

_I felt alive. I felt free. Heathcliff was the cause of my pain and Isabella. The poor girl had become a sort of ally with me against Heathcliff. Though I’ve no doubt she did not condone such an action. I condoned it, reasoned that it was for the greater good and that I could not regret putting that bastard out of his misery._

_The sight of the blood and the dead man was a sickening one. One that did not allow my sense of freedom to last, one that wanted me to suffer. One that told me I was not just a drunk and a gambler but that now I was also a murderer. I was now beyond God and deserved my own personal hell._

_Of all of my regret, Cathy and I have a lot of it, it is the next part that I regret the most. While I would take it all back, if I could only redo one part it would be this. Hareton walked in. Six years old and innocently idolising Heathcliff, Hareton wandered in to find him._

_Oh god._

_If there was even an innocent who didn't deserve the life that he was given it is Hareton. The lad deserves a better father, a better household, a better life. I pray that you will give him the better life he deserves. Do not blame the child for the Father's crimes. I pray also that when I die, I stop hearing his screams._

_How he screamed. He saw his idol, the man he saw as his saviour and he saw me, the man he needed saving from and he screamed. He bent down beside the bled-out body and screamed. He held on to Heathcliff and screamed more. He screamed and he sobbed and my heart broke._

_His screams turned from anguish to fear and anger when I approached him and I raised my hands in surrender to show I meant no harm. The gun raised with my arm and I stared at it for a moment before letting it drop to the ground. We both jumped at the clatter it created on the wooden flooring. Hareton seemed frozen to the spot, his eyes the only thing moving, as though searching for an escape that didn’t exist. I grabbed him. I shouldn’t have. I should’ve left him, I should’ve given him to Isabella or... I do not know or what only that I should not have touched him._

_I pulled him to me, holding him tightly. He no longer screamed by rather he sobbed. He sobbed with a pain that no child of that age should have to experience. I held him and I apologised over and over and I told him it would be okay and he would be safe and it would be better._

_He hit me, wild flying punches that had no really strength behind them. He hit and he cried. “Devil Daddy, murderer Dad. HEATHCLIFF!” He stopped hitting as he screamed the dead man’s name and instead just struggled at my grip. I let go. What else could I do. Hareton fled from the room screaming murder._

_Joseph was out, in town or at church I neither know nor care. No one soothed Hareton’s. It has been a long time since anyone was soothed in this house as you well know. Hareton retreated to the barn house and the comfort of the animals and eventually I left the living room. My legs did not want to carry my body but I forced them forward knowing they would not have to be strong for long._

_After ascending the stairs, I found Heathcliff and Isabella bedroom door open and the latter in the carefully placing clothing into a case so fancy it must’ve come with her from the Grange._

_“You are leaving.”_

_She turned to face me then. She did not look scared of me which initially was a surprised “I have longed for that man to be dead for many a month now. It is my Christian duty to condemn you but I cannot truly do so. I must leave. I have been planning my departure for a few days since discovering...” She trailed off there and began again. “I do not belong here, I have no place here. I need to leave for myself and for... my baby.”_

_“Your with child,” the normality of the conversation kept me calm and steady._

_She nodded and returned to her packing. I left her to it, coming simply to my own room to write you this letter. I will leave it for Joseph to deliver. I could not tell you where Isabella is now, I heard her departure as I have been writing. I will not be here much longer, Cathy. I have realised that I was wrong time and time again. The answer was not in the bottle, nor the cards, nor in the removal of Heathcliff but rather the removal of myself._

_It is unfair to ask but I have one request of your. Take Hareton in, let him have the life he deserves. Hate me, I deserve it, but Hareton has done no wrong. Someone needs to break this cycle of pain and death. It would never be me, nor Heathcliff but there is something better in you or at least in Edgar. Please. For Hareton’s sake._

_I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry a million times over._

_Goodbye, dear Cathy._   
_Yours_   
_Hindley Earnshaw._


	4. Chapter Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cathy reacts to the contents of Hindley's letter as well as you.would expect.

Cathy read the letter through once with the cold detachment of one reading a novel that lacked realism to the point of not being able to suspend disbelief. Without a word, or even a glance at Edgar, she turned back to the first sheet and read it through again. Then a third time. The words began to swim in her mind and at moments she thought they swam in the air in front of her.

No tears reached Cathy’s eyes now and we it wasn’t the same serenity of the past fortnight, she was calm. She placed the letter down on the couch beside her and raised herself to her feet. “Nelly, do fetch Hareton, I hate to think of him in that gloomy house with only the dreadful Joseph for company. Edgar do not argue now, he is my nephew and he is to reside here.”

She looked at neither Nelly nor Edgar as she spoke and waited for no answer from either of them before leaving the room. She did not make it to the front door before Edgar had caught up with herm “Catherine, darling, where are you going?”

“Simply for a walk,” She said and stepped out. The stone pavement was cold against her bare feet but she did not feel it. She walked down the garden path, through the Grange land and out onto the wilds of the moors. She did not need to look back to know that Edgar was not following her. He knew he could not share this with her. That no one could.

The path moved from stone pavement to cobbles to nothing but the earth. Tree roots caught on her feet and torn the skin, mixing mud and blood in them. She continued, weaving her way through thickets and trees and clambering over rocks that jutting from the ground. She moved as though she had no possession of her own body, as though possessed, as though a ghost.

She walked, perhaps ten minutes past, perhaps several hours, she had no concept, no awareness. She climbed and clambered as freely as she had longed to be when her fever had been high. It was not the perfect cure she had longed for however. Every step was a reminder that she was doing this alone, that she would always be alone.  
Was it possible to continue when your soul was dead?

Cathy did not understand how her heart continued to breathe nor how air continued to fill her lungs. And yet beat on it did and breathe on she did. And she clambered. She stopped only when her breath demanded a pause. Cathy sat on a rock and lay back, staring at the sky and the clouds that covered it. She wondered for a fleeting perfect moment if perhaps her breath would stop also and coming with it would be the reconnection with Heathcliff but alas her breath steadied. With the steadying of her breath came the tears.

When they started they would not stop. She cried, she sobbed, she wept. She screamed and even went as far as to kick and punch at the rock below her. Had anyone seen her they would have thought her an impertinent child not a new mother but the moors were so deserted that she was free. Free to scream and cry and work herself into any passion she liked.

“It’s not fair!” The words were that of a sulking child but they held a pain much deeper. She jumped to her feet, directing her anger at the sky, at the ground, at the very air that surround her. She directed it at the dead. “How dare you leave me? So soon after your return you leave me so permanently. Heathcliff. You said that neither God nor Satan could part us, you said it was I but it was you. You gave up on me. You left me. Again you left. You always leave. If you could only have believed in me. In you could only understand that I would never truly leave you. I could not quit this earth while you remained on it. And yet you did. You did not fight for me as I did for you.”

Cathy ran. Perhaps she could outrun the tears, outrun the pain. Perhaps of she were to run far enough she would run right to him. She jumped roots and through heather. She ran and she ran and she ran.

“Where are you?” She shrieked the words into the sky as she ran. Stopping only after them and dropping herself to her knees. “Where are you? Heathcliff find me! I called you my murderer and you called me yours. If I call on you will you finish the job? Will you drag me to the bowels of the earth with you. Will you kill me?” Hands ran over her face and through her hair, fingers catching on the tangles. “Do not leave me. The world is an abyss without you here. You returned to me once. Say you will do it again. I love you. I need you. Heathcliff, I am you. How can my heart beat when it’s reason for doing so is gone. How can I convince my legs to walk when there is no you to walk to. How. How so I look at the world when I can never again behold your face. How? How? How?”

Cathy tugged at her hair with such force that clumps came out in her hands. The pain was mild compared to that inside of her. The anguish she screamed but could not pacify. His name escaped her lips with such volume it was a wonder it was not heard across Yorkshire. Once. Twice. Trice.

“Be you the walking dead or a spirit, I care not. Please. Please.” Her voice subsided into a plea and she sobbed into the muddied ground. She remained there, letting her body shake and her tears fall, letting her desperation seep out of her, silently vowing to remain there until she was as dead as he.


	5. Chapter Five

“Catherine, my love, there you are.”

Cathy did not know how she got back to the Grange or at what point Nelly arm had come around her shoulders. Neither did she know when she had stopped crying or when it had started to rain. Prior to Edgar’s voice she only remembered the moors yet here she was, dripping wet with a torn and muddied dress, outside her home. She stared at Edgar blankly, confused by his presence and her location.

“Nelly draw her a warm bath and some tea,” Edgar ordered, taking Cathy into his arms and away from Nelly. He held Cathy close to him as Nelly disappeared back into the house. Cathy Wass unresponsive leaning against Edgar as limp as a doll.

She did not fight when he attempted to lead her back into the house and simply followed passively. The warmth of the house was initially too much and Cathy shivered in contempt. She was cold, cold to her very soul but the house created a warm embrace that she could not bear. She pulled from Edgar’s hold as the one physical touch she could remove herself from. The touch burned her, the house burned her. Once the grip was done, Cathy fell to the ground of her own choice. She did not want to be upright, she did not want to be supported, she did not want to be comforted or warmed and beyond all of this, she did not want to be.

Cathy curled into herself and Edgar was knelt beside her within a moment of her falling. She was loosely aware of him talking, no she was loosely aware of their being sound. She was loosely aware of the wrong sound, so gentle and kind beside her. She could not move, could not think, she was so cold.

A scream.

This was the sound Cathy expected. This was the sound Cathy longed to make. She wished to scream until her throat bled from the effort, until there was such a rawness within her throat that it could distract her from the pain within, until there was nothing but the noise of the scream. She wanted to scream until ears were pierced and heads thumped , she wanted to scream until the dead rose and re-joined her.

The scream was not coming from Cathy but Catherine.

Cathy started up at the noise and had left in search of it before Edgar had the time to reassure her that Catherine wad perfectly safe with a maid. Cathy followed the sound expertly, coming to the secondary kitchen of the Grange and found Catherine in the arms of Lizzie. Lizzie was a relatively young maid, perhaps a few years younger than Cathy herself but she possessed a motherly touch despite her youth. She was smiling down at Catherine, making exactly the time of cooing noises the infant needed to calm down.

Lizzie started at the sight of Cathy, momentarily thinking she saw a spirit or something of the sort before placing the face of her mistress. She smiled despite the deathly look upon Cathy’s face. “Little Catherine was just feeling a bit grizzly, she’s doing better now” Lizzie returned her gaze to Catherine and made a series of nonsense faces while she added “Aren’t you little one?”

“There is no need to reassure the child. The sooner she learns that the world is only pain and cruelty the better,” Cathy told her coolly.

Lizzie looked back towards her mistress and frowned “Ma’am?” She asked in concerned.

“We need not molly-coddle her simply because she is young,” Cathy replied. Her voice was steady n but it lacked emotion. Her expression was cold and Lizzie could not help but feel relieved when Edgar stepped into the light and overtook the situation. The master had been watching the situation not wanting to believe Cathy would do anything to the child but not wishing to risk anything.

“Catherine, my love, I think we should let little Cathy have some peace. You don’t want to scare her with the state her Mamma is in, do you?”

Cathy swung around to face her husband, “Let her be afraid, let her be scared. The world is scary, Edgar. The world is horrifying. The world is full of pain and suffering and illness. We live in pain and then we die. Or worse we don’t. We see everything that means anything taken from us and that cruel master above or that beast below forces us to continue. Our hearts beat on when there is no will, no meaning, no want. So why should she not be scared? Let her be scared. She should be.”

Her monologue was cut short by a new scream coming from the infant herself. The tension in the room was too much for her and crying was the only way she had of expressing her discomfort. Cathy was not pacified by this childish and desperate plea from her daughter. Instead it added a chill to her already icy rant. She turned again to Lizzie who was rocking Catherine in her arms in a desperate attempt to calm her.

“Yes! Scream! Keep screaming my child because devil knows you will have reason to do so. The world will care not for your screams, will care not for anything. We can all scream. We can all,” with that Cathy let out a scream more towards Lizzie chest rather than at Catherine as the maid was holding her close the in protection. “You think you know pain child, you know nothing. Nothing. I have far more reason to scream than you.” Cathy screamed again, long and loud and was firmly pulled away by Edgar.

Her struggles were vain against Edgar’s strength. He was not a particularly strong man but Cathy was particular weak in this moment that he could move her with ease. She continued to scream, the screams cruel in comparison to the desperate child’s screams that she was trying to outdo. Edgar did not stop until he had pulled her into the main living room. He no longer cared for keeping it clean that could be sorted later.

“Catherine stop!” Edgar insisted, he did not raise his voice simply added a degree of force behind it which managed to cut through Cathy’s screams. She stopped and stared at him with a look of venom.

“Why should I?” She demanded.

“You are hurting and I will grant you a madness of grief but I will not allow you to take that out on our daughter.” Edgar said unrelenting. “You may take it out on me and to a lesser extent on Miss Dean but you will not go around acting threatening towards our staff and your own child is that clear?”

There was no reply from Cathy but Edgar did not take this as a victory. There was nothing to be won in Cathy’s indescribably pained expression. The silence continued between the pair, Cathy staring at nothing, no pretence of calm in her expression, Edgar watching her and longing to comfort her but unsure how. There was a level of gratitude within both of them when Nelly entered minutes later and told them Cathy’s bath was ready. 


	6. Chapter 6

Cathy followed Nelly not because she wanted to or because she was eager to get to the bath but rather because she needed to be away from Edgar and she was in such a weak frame of mind that she likely would've followed anyone who tried to lead her somewhere. She was lead up the stairs and into a room that only held the tub. It looked warm, it looked comfortable and Cathy felt like she would cry at the sight of it. She didn't want comfort and she knew she could never be warm again, her fire, her soul, her world was dead, what was the point in her continuing? She wasn't even sure how it was possible that she was still breathing, that she was still living.

She was hardly aware of Nelly striping her or any of the words that Nelly was saying during it. No doubt it was her usual prattling nonsense that didn't really mean anything. Cathy didn't care. She didn't care for anything, she couldn't get herself out of her head. She allowed Nelly to take her hand, let her guide her into the bath. She sat down in it, but she did not lean back, she did not let the water run over her entire being and cleanse her like she used to when taking a warming bath. No, she wouldn't, she wouldn't. Cathy knew the water was warm, she knew there was something warm touching her, but it was as though there was a barrier between it and her, she knew it was there and was aware of what it would feel like and would be, but it was unable to touch her. She was cold, she was shivering cold, but it was an internal cold that no level of external heat could heal. She was beyond fixing now. There was only one thing that could fix her and that was gone from her forever.

Nelly continued to move around Cathy, lifting her arms and legs to help wash them, gently running water over her head to wash her hair. Cathy didn't move, didn't flinch, didn't react to any of this. She knew she was wet, she knew she was being moved but she was detached. She was separated from it and not in control of any of it. Her body sat here in the water, warm and safe and looked after but her soul was lying in Wuthering Heights with no hope of returning to her.

Cathy got out of the bath when Nelly began to lift her. She was sure that Nelly had been speaking but not a word of it had been able to reach her. She continued to let Nelly guide her body, continued to allow herself to be moved and changed and altered as though she was a doll and Nelly was a child. It didn't matter what happened to her body. It didn't matter if Nelly was drying her and taking her to bed in her nightie or leaving her dripping and stabbing her in the heart, it was all the same to Cathy now.

She was in the bedroom with no real idea of how she had got there, and she was lying on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. She was alone and had no concept of how much time had passed since someone had been with her. She hadn't slept, her eyes hadn't closed once, but she had not been there except in body. She was with her love, her world in spirit, she was searching for him, searching for something that was lost to her for good. She heard a voice, a male voice but not the right one. She didn't move, she didn't look, she didn't react. She couldn't. She was not within her body, she was not willing to come back to it. Her mind hurt but at least her mind was trying to find Heathcliff again, her body had broken down and given up.

A hand touched her own then, it was as cold as ice and Cathy didn't understand how she could feel that. She was cold, she was freezing to the very core so how could she feel something that was equally as cold. Instinct made her hand flinch away from the touch and the other hand withdrew. At least that was gone. Cathy knew that the person attached to that hand, the same one attached to the voice she had heard would draw her back, would force her back into her body, would make her continue with her life and she could not do that. She could not live, she had died, she had died with the gunshot that killed Heathcliff and she was being forced to continued but she wouldn't. She refused.

Time passed without her and she was aware only of voices and pressures on her hand, on her face, on her chest. She was loosely aware of liquid being placed into her mouth and her body reacting enough to swallow it.

\--

“Cathy, my life,” Heathcliff’s voice was full of a happiness neither of them could express. “Did I not promise you we would be together always? Did you truly doubt me? Did you truly believe that I would leave you to this dreadful world alone?”

Cathy didn’t speak, couldn’t speak. She ran into his arms, held him tighter than she had ever held anyone. Her arms were around him and gripping at the back of his shirt, her head buried deep into his chest, her tears falling and soaking the fabric of the shirt. “Heathcliff…” was all she could say.

Heathcliff pushed her back slowly and wiped the tears from her eyes. “Don’t cry, my Cathy,” He said softly. “There is no need for you to cry ever again. We are together now, we are together for always now, my love.”

Cathy’s hands explored him, moving from around him to run down his arms, then back up before feeling at his face, refamiliarising herself with each and every feature of his. The whiskers tickled her hands, and his face was beginning to show the signs of age. They were so young, but pain and stress had aged them prematurely. She knew every feature by heart and her heart soared at every one of them. The curves and contours that her hands followed were everything she knew, everything she needed.

“I am with you, my Cathy.”

\--

“Catherine. Catherine! Darling, Catherine”

The voice tore through her subconscious. She had not been asleep, it had not been a dream. It was far too vivid and real for it to not have been real. “Heathcliff” she murmured, as she felt him torn away from her again, she was reaching for him and him for her, but he was vanishing. The room was refocusing around her, her bedroom at the Grange; and Edgar Linton’s face staring down at her in panic.

“Catherine,” his voice was softer when he realised she saw him. “Welcome back, darling.” He sat beside her on the bed and she flinched. She hated him at that moment. She hated him with all the hatred Heathcliff had ever felt for him or Hindley or Joseph or the world as a whole.

“Leave me.” She said. Had she had the energy she would’ve jumped up and forced him from the room; Edgar was weak after all. Her earthly body was too weak for such actions though, she had no energy to move even an arm to nudge him away let alone anything else. She lay on the bed in a form of living death that she longed to become a true death.

“Catherine…”

“Why did you bring me back?” She said. The anger and hatred she felt came out only as a soft whisper. How could one be so exhausted and still alive? How could one lose their very soul and still have their heartbeat? “Do you hate me that much?”

“I do not hate you, Catherine, you know that,” Edgar’s voice was gentle but there was a tiredness in it. A tiredness of the situation. “You need to return to us, darling. Cathy needs you, I need you.”

“Cathy…” She repeated the name like a dream. Cathy was her. She didn’t need herself. She needed to return to herself, her true self that was dead and gone. “Cathy…?”

“Your daughter,” Edgar didn’t snap but he was close. “Our daughter whom you have abandoned for your grief. This is not fair to her, to any of us.”

“Life isn’t fair. You should’ve let me die when I gave birth,” She murmured. “Cathy does not need me. You do not need me. Heathcliff, Heathcliff needs me. He needs me to find him. I should never have gone with you. You are nothing.”

“Catherine,” Edgar stood up again, “I understand you are grieving, but I will not take this abuse. We have given you time, we have allowed you to wallow, well no longer. You have been in this state of nothingness for weeks now. Cathy needs her mother. It is time for you to pull yourself together and start acting like an adult.”

 


End file.
